Press release

The Norwegian Nobel Committee

The Nobel Peace Prize 2001

The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the Nobel Peace
Prize for 2001, in two equal portions, to the United Nations
(U.N.) and to its Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, for
their work for a better organized and more peaceful world.

For one hundred years, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has sought
to strengthen organized cooperation between states. The end of the
cold war has at last made it possible for the U.N. to perform more
fully the part it was originally intended to play. Today the organization
is at the forefront of efforts to achieve peace and security in
the world, and of the international mobilization aimed at meeting
the world's economic, social and environmental challenges.

Kofi Annan has devoted almost his entire working life to the U.N.
As Secretary-General, he has been pre-eminent in bringing new life
to the organization. While clearly underlining the U.N.'s traditional
responsibility for peace and security, he has also emphasized its
obligations with regard to human rights. He has risen to such new
challenges as HIV/AIDS and international terrorism, and brought
about more efficient utilization of the U.N.'s modest resources.
In an organization that can hardly become more than its members
permit, he has made clear that sovereignty can not be a shield behind
which member states conceal their violations.

The U.N. has in its history achieved many successes, and suffered
many setbacks. Through this first Peace Prize to the U.N. as such,
the Norwegian Nobel Committee wishes in its centenary year to proclaim
that the only negotiable route to global peace and cooperation goes
by way of the United Nations.